3. GOOD READING.

1. There is one accomplishment, in particular, which I would earnestly recommend to you. Cultivate assiduously the ability to read well. I stop to partícularize this, because it is a thing so very much neglécted, and because it is such an elegant and charming accomplishment. Where óne person is really interested by músic, twenty are pleased by good reading. Where one person is capable of becoming a skillful musician, twenty may become good readers. Where there is one occasion suitable for the exercise of músical talent, there are twenty for that of good reading.

2. The culture of the voice necessary for réading well, gives a delightful charm to the same voice in conversàtion. Good reading is the natural exponent and vehicle of all good things. It seems to bring dead authors to lìfe again, and makes us sit down familiarly with the great and good of all ages.

3. What a fascination there is in really good reading! What a power it gives one! In the hospital, in the chamber of the invalid, in the nursery, in the doméstic and in the social circle, among chosen friends and compànions, how it enables you to minister to the amusement, the comfort, the pleasure of dear ones as no other art or accomplishment càn. No instrument of man's devising can reach the heart as does that most wonderful ínstrument, the human voice.

4. If you would double the value of all your other acquisitions; if you would add immeasurably to your ówn enjoyment and to your power of promoting the enjoyment of others, cultivate, with incessant care, this divine gift. No music below the skies is equal to that of pure, silvery speech from the lips of a man or woman of high culture.

JOHN S. HART.

I. VOCAL TRAINING.-MOVEMENT, RATE, OR TIME

There are three main distinctions of movement in reading-slow, moderate, and fast.

Slow movement prevails in the utterance of praise and adoration, and in the expression of grief, melancholy, meditation, grandeur, and sublimity.

Moderate rate prevails in narrative, descriptive, or didactic reading; in fact, in the greater part of selections for school reading.

Fast, or quick rate prevails in the expression of mirth, humor, gladness, or hurry and haste.

CONCERT MOVEMENT DRILL.

Repeat four times, the long vowel sounds-a, e, i, ō, ū: 1. With slow movement.

2. With moderate movement.

3. With fast movement.

I. SLOW MOVEMENT.

In this movement the vowel and liquid sounds are prolonged, and the rhetorical, emphatic, and grammatical pauses are long.

I. THE HOUR OF DEATH.

Leaves have their time to fall,

And flowers to wither at the north-wind's breath,
And stars to set-but all,

Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!

Youth and the opening rose

May look like things too glorious for decay,

And smile at thee-but thou art not of those That wait the ripened bloom to seize their prey.

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MRS. HEMANS.

II. TO A WATERFOWL.

Whither, midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along.

BRYANT.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day;
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea;
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his drony flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.

II. MODERATE MOVEMENT.

THE BRAVE.

How sleep the brave who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mold,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

COLLINS.

NOTE. Almost any piece of narrative or descriptive prose affords examples of moderate movement. From pieces in Part I, previously read, require pupils to select extracts to be read with moderate

rate.

III. FAST MOVEMENT.

I. THE MESSAGE.

The muster-place is Lanrick mead;
Speed forth the signal! Norman, speed!
The summons dread brooks no delay.
Stretch to the race-away! away!

SCOTT.

II. THE SUMMONS.

Come as the winds come, when forests are rended;
Come as the waves come, when navies are stranded
Faster come, faster come, faster and faster:

Chief, vassal, page, and groom, tenant and master.
Fast they come, fast they come; see how they gather!
Wide waves the eagle plume, blended with heather.
Cast your plaids, draw your blades, forward each man set;
Pibroch of Donuil Dhu, knell for the onset!

III. THE PRAIRIE FIRE.

Pull, pull in your lassos, and bridle to steed,

SCOTT.

And speed you if ever for life you would speed,
And ride for your lives, for your lives you must ride!
For the plain is aflame, the prairie on fire;
And feet of wild horses hard flying before,
I hear like a sea breaking high on the shore;
While the buffalo come like a surge of the sea,
Driven far by the flame, driving fast on us three,
As a hurricane comes, crushing palms in his ire.

IV. L'ALLEGRO.

Sometimes, with secure delight,
The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecs sound,

To many a youth and many a maid,
Dancing in the checkered shade.

MILLER.

MILTON.

1. John Greenleaf Whittier is of a Quaker family, and was born in Haverhill, Mass., 1807. He afterwards removed to Amesbury, and thence to Danvers, where he now resides. Until he was eighteen years of age, he remained at home, attending the district school and assisting his father on the farm.

As

2. One afternoon, while he was gathering in the hay, a peddler dropped a copy of Burns in his hands. he sat under a maple's shadow, singing with Burns the hours away, his eyes were unsealed. He found that the things out of which poetry came were not away off in a foreign land, but lying right there about his feet, and among the people he knew.